Just for Fun

A study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology indicates that the smell of alcohol makes people more likely to drink. This may have to do with pleasant associations, like warm times with friends and past enjoyable experiences. Here’s an interesting pull-quote about the power of the sense of smell:

“The smell in an old cupboard can remind us of a fond relative, for instance. The same is true for alcohol. I know some people who cannot stand the sight nor the smell of a certain drink, because it reminds them of a past, unpleasant, experience resulting from drinking too much of that drink.”

An aroma’s ability to bring back deep memories is marvelous, but in the methodical analysis of fine drinks can be confusing. A smell that piques a specific memory can, perhaps paradoxically, make it harder to articulate the aroma. It’s hard for anyone else to know what your grandmother’s cookies smelled like, for example. So we teach a new association with a particular aroma. We wouldn’t rob you of the pleasant memory of your grandmother’s kitchen. We just teach you to recognize that aroma as a combination of vanilla and pecans and butter. Those are terms other people can understand.

While there is no firm timetable for the opening of trade between the U.S. and Cuba, President Obama is on a rum run to Havana, so we’ve asked him to bring back some samples.

While he’s gone, we’ll look back on the the last visit to Cuba by an American President, Calvin Coolidge. Prohibition was the law of the land in the US, and when Silent Cal and his press entourage landed in Havana, everyone went, basically, nuts. Here’s an account from a journalist traveling with the President:

“Pretty much everyone in the presidential party, except the highest officials, hit the hot streets of Havana, and enjoyed their first legal drinks in years. The Cuban government sent some police officials to make sure the Americans had a good time. Quite a party of us trooped off with them to see the sights, not all of which were culturally elevating.”

When the trip was over, the press corps took advantage of the President’s customs-free re-entry into the US by smuggling hundreds of bottles of Cuban rum.